When I rumbled the Patrol to a jerky standstill on their moss-covered forecourt, the whole place looked dark and quiet, lying as it did under the shadow of the trees, but I knew Jacob would be watching the strange vehicle warily from somewhere. I cut the engine, suddenly aware of a fatigue so overwhelming it made me want to weep. I twisted in my seat.
“Sean?”
For a moment there was silence and all manner of nasty scenarios slithered past my eyes, but then I heard the quiet rustle of clothing as he moved.
“Yeah.” His voice was clogged and raspy. “I’m still with it.”
I climbed out and, once they’d seen my face, both Jacob and Clare came hurrying out of the front door. The orange glow of the hall light flooded out after them, and threw elongated shadows onto the stone sets.
“My God, Charlie, what the hell’s happened?” Jacob demanded, limping forwards as I yanked the passenger door open and Sean’s bloodied figure all but fell out into my arms.
“He’s been shot and he needs help,” I said bluntly, staggering under the weight. I caught their instant withdrawal, their hesitation, and swung to face them.
“I know I’m pushing my luck coming here, but I didn’t know where else to take him,” I said, speaking fast and low. “If you want me to go, tell me now, but make your minds up quick, before he bleeds to death.”
That broke them out of it. Jacob came forwards to help me then. If he hadn’t, I never would have got Sean into the house.
Clare went ahead, fluttering anxiously, holding doors open for us and shooing the dogs out of the way. They were taking far too much interest in the state of the new arrival for my liking.
By general consensus, we put him in the kitchen, where at least the blood he was losing could be mopped off the flagged floor. We propped him gently against the kitchen table and Jacob supported him there while I carefully peeled his coat away from the wound.
Underneath it, my makeshift dressing was drenched scarlet. In the strong light it seemed that the front half of his jacket was stained wet with it. It scared me, the amount he was losing. He couldn’t hope to sustain it.
I took one look at Jacob’s troubled face, and realised he knew it, too.
I clenched my teeth with the effort it took not to cry.
Clare came bustling in then with a big First Aid kit. We broke the seal and found decent-sized sterile dressings inside. I’m not sure they were much more effective than my T-shirt, but at least they looked the part.
Jacob moved away, filled the kettle and shoved it to boil on top of the Aga. Clare had gone again, reappearing with a bundle of ragged towels. “They’re only old,” she said, pale but determined, “but they’ve been washed.”
I nodded gratefully to her, suddenly fiercely proud of my friends. The way they’d taken us in without asking awkward questions. Like who was this guy? And why would anyone want to be shooting at him?
All the time I kept up pressure on the site of the wound, leaning into him, the only way to curb the bleeding. It finally seemed to be slowing up, and at least it gave me the excuse to watch him for a few moments.
Even through the pain and the anger, the times when I’d hated Sean as violently as I’d loved him, I’d never forgotten the beauty of him.
“Sean.” His eyes flickered open at my soft call. There were grim circles round them, shadows etched in deep. “We need to get to that wound, clean it up,” I said. “Are you up to this?”
He nodded once, and eased himself upright. I helped him with the coat, but left as much of his tattered shirt in place as I could. Despite the warmth of the kitchen, he still felt chilled.
“Get him onto the table,” Jacob suggested.
We laid him down flat then, bunching the coat under his head. Clare unfolded some of the towels and laid them over Sean’s torso and legs, trying to keep him warm.
Once the kettle had begun to hum, we ferried hot water in bowls to mop the worst of the blood away. He could still move his fingers, but the front of his shoulder had started to swell, and he didn’t seem to be able to lift his arm much.
At length, I stepped back. “It’s no good, Sean,” I said, dropping another ruined towel into the bowl at my feet. “That bullet’s going to have to come out, and the sooner the better.”
He lifted his head cautiously, body tight with the pain, but his voice seemed detached. “Then you’ll have to do it,” he said.
“You’re joking!” I snapped. “What? Douse you down with whisky and go rooting about in there with a knife and fork? What happened? You in a hurry to die now, soldier?”
He let his head drop back. “What other option is there?” he asked, sounding unbearably tired.
“Let me make a phone call,” I said, throwing a glance as much to Jacob for his permission as to Sean. “Then we’ll see.”
When neither man made any dissent, I moved over to the phone and dialled a number that I didn’t have to look up. While the line rang out at the other end I tried not to pray for the right person to answer. He did.
I didn’t bother with much of a preliminary, and didn’t mention any names, just gave him the bald facts. I asked for his help. It wasn’t easy, but I’d been driven that far before and had come out lucky.
There was what seemed like a long period of silence on the other end of the line. A careful and measured consideration. Not of the possibilities of treating the patient, but of the morality of helping me at all. And all the time I stood there watching Sean across the other side of my friends’ kitchen, and fighting the misery.
“Look,” I said at length, turning away and trying to keep the suppressed rage out of my voice. “If you’re not prepared to come and do this yourself, at least tell me what to expect when I go in there, because one way or another, that bullet’s got to come out of him tonight.” I took a shaky breath, then added, “I just think he’ll have a better chance of surviving if you do it.”
“All right, Charlotte,” said my father, “I’ll come. Keep him warm. Keep him awake if you can, and keep trying to control the bleeding. I’ll need some things, but I should be with you in less than two hours.”
I gave him directions, started to thank him, but I was already speaking into a dead line.
I turned back to Sean as I put the receiver back on its cradle. “Help’s on the way. Just you keep breathing until it gets here or my name’s going to be lower than shit.”
It was not much of a joke and, correspondingly, it raised not much of a smile, but under the circumstances it was the best any of us could muster.
“Thank you, Charlie,” Sean said quietly.
I swallowed. I couldn’t cope with him when he was being anything other than a cold and clinical bastard. “Don’t thank me,” I said bluntly. “We’re nowhere
***
Even though we were expecting it, the squawk of the drive alarm made me jump. I looked at my watch, and saw that it was precisely an hour and forty minutes since my phone call. Nevertheless, Clare quickly drew the kitchen curtains and we waited, tensed like deer, while Jacob went to the door.
When he returned a few moments later, my father was behind him.
My father strode immediately to his patient, only pausing to favour me with one brief reproving glance as he came in. He was dressed as though for a Sunday lunchtime stroll to the village pub, in dark green corduroy trousers and a wool check shirt.
Only the stiff tan leather bag didn’t quite fit. The case he’d always carried, first as a doctor, then as a surgeon, for more than thirty years. When he put that down on one of the kitchen chairs it landed with a solid thump that was unnerving.
He unfolded a pair of expensive gold-framed glasses from his inside jacket pocket, and pulled on latex gloves, moving with a deceptively slow kind of haste. As though he was aware that an outright rush would have caused panic.
“What’s his name?” he asked quietly as he slotted a stethoscope round his neck and pulled an inflatable cuff out of his bag.
“Sean,” I said.
For a moment he frowned, then the memory and the realisation hit almost at the same time, flashing over like a sparking match.
He shot a quick glance at Sean’s supine figure, but this time it wasn’t the concerned gaze of doctor to
